Travelers are switching from desktop Web browsers to smartphones and tablets in droves, but some travel companies have been slow to adapt to the change in traveler behavior.
Check out these half-dozen noteworthy statistics about mobile adoption.
1. Integrate mobile in everything you do.
This year, people will book nearly twice as much travel via tablets and smartphones than they did last year, says a forecast by eMarketer. The $13.6 billion in travel bookings via mobile will comprise about 10% of total digital sales in 2013.
2. For mobile sales, last-minute is king.
If transactions are all you care about, then know that a key element of mobile travel is related to timing of arrival. On Hotels.com, 70% of bookings are for same day, and most of these are done after 2 p.m. for same-day bookings.
3. Email messages are increasingly being viewed (and shared) on mobile devices.International Hotels Group (IHG) says that 35% of emails it sends to customers are opened on mobile devices.
4. Paying for mobile search campaigns seems to be an effective way to targeting travellers.
Consider this: 32% of travel apps are downloaded from clicks on ads, says Google's annual Traveler's Road to Decision study.
5. The ideal situation is to have both a mobile web and an app strategy.
Case in point: Expedia.com reports that one in five of its consumers books travel on via mobile (apps or mobile website), while a majority of its customers use mobile devices to research elements of their booking.
But if your budget is limited, opt for the mobile web route. Even if you're not focused on transactions, a mobile web strategy is important. Thanks to programming languages like HTML 5, it's now affordable and effective to have a browser-based mobile version of your website can work across all the major platforms.
6. Personalization matters.
Provide socially relevant information, if possible. Exhibit A: Yelp's mobile tools are built so that when a user looks up a business where their friends have already left a review, their freinds' reviews will appear at the top of the review listings.